P.L. 92-641 mandates a nation-wide network of local health planning agencies, HSAs, charged with increasing the efficiency, quality, accessibility and equity of health services. To have a positive impact, however, HSAs must not only develop plans, they must take steps to ensure their plans are implemented. In working toward plan implementation, HSAs face several constraints. They are organizationally separate from those who provide, purchase and finance health services; they have little authority over their decisions and actions; and they have few financial resources to serve as incentives. HSAs' current authority is largely negative: they can block service expansions unjustified by local need. Given these restraints, HSAs need to develop and apply influence over the decisions and actions of other health service-related organizations, if they are to implement their plans. The proposed study will explore how HSAs can develop such interorganizational influence. It will seek empirical confirmation for several hypotheses, relating implementation success to various characteristics of professional and volunteer members of HSAs (their current and prior affiliations and informal contacts, their technical and socio-political skills, and their attitudes to practice and strategic planning) and to the degree of autonomy granted to HSA staff by their governing body. Field research will be conducted on a sample of six HSAs in the Western U.S., three identified by experts as among the most successful in plan implementation, and three others identified as among the least successful. Using interviews, survey questionnaires, observations and analysis of plan documents and other material, data will be collected on the independent variables noted above, on mediating variables related to goals pursued and characteristics of community power structure, and on details of implementation activities and their outcomes. Analysis products will include case studies, and within group and between group comparisons, to confirm or refine initial hypotheses and generate new hypotheses.